White-only proms
Dancing to an old Southern segregationist tune
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LOCAL & REGIONAL BRIEFS
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NC Senate passes death penalty
moratorium bill

Washington, DC, Apr. 30— The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) today applauded the North Carolina Senate for passing a bill to halt executions in the state for two years while state officials conduct a thorough examination of its death penalty system. The North Carolina Senate becomes the first legislative chamber to pass moratorium legislation this year.

“The North Carolina Senate’s courageous action continues the groundswell that has been sweeping the nation in recent years,” said Rachel King, State Strategies Coordinator for the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project. “The death penalty is riddled with errors and flaws and people across the country are standing up and saying that when the punishment is death, there is no room for doubt.”

Senate Bill S972 was passed today by a voice vote after the bill was approved out of committee. The Senate committee acted just five days after Judge Michael Beale of Wadesboro overturned the death sentence of Jerry Lee Hamilton and ordered a new trial.

Judge Beale noted that prosecutors withheld crucial evidence that the defense should have had for the 1994 trial. Johnny Knight, Hamilton’s nephew, first confessed to the crime but later recanted and accused Hamilton. Despite a lack of physical evidence linking Hamilton to the killing, prosecutors won a death sentence. When Hamilton’s attorneys began working on his appeal they discovered a letter from Knight to his jailers inviting them to discuss a deal -- information the trial lawyers should have had.

Just four months ago another North Carolina judge threw out Alan Gell’s death sentence after finding that prosecutors and police withheld evidence of the defendant’s innocence. Gell is in prison awaiting either a new trial or release.

“We are thrilled with today’s vote and the leadership shown by the Senate — particularly Senators Daniel Clodfelter and Eleanor Kinnaird,” said Patricia Camp, Executive Director of the ACLU of North Carolina. “The Senate’s ability to put aside personal feelings on the death penalty and focus on the questions of fundamental fairness shows a tremendous amount of courage and should serve as an example to state legislatures across the country.”

More than 500 groups in North Carolina have called for a moratorium on executions, including 21 local governments and most of the state’s major newspapers. Moratorium bills were introduced in 18 states this year, and are still pending in 13 of them.

Source: American Civil Liberties Union

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White-only proms
Dancing to an old Southern segregationist tune

By Gary Younge

May 3— It was prom night last night in rural Georgia. Or at least it was for some. New graduates in one high school yesterday danced to an old Southern tune — racial segregation.

White students at Taylor County High School held a whites-only prom, separating on racial grounds some children who had been educated together since kindergarten in their final rite of passage as they leave school.

The decision to hold the whites-only event was a particular blow for some because the school held its first integrated prom in 31 years last year. Before then, parents and students organized separate proms for whites and blacks after school officials stopped sponsoring dances, partly to avoid problems arising from interracial dating.

“I cried,” said Gerica McCrary, a black student who helped organize last year’s integrated dance, of the moment when she heard the news. “The black [students] said, ‘Our prom is open to everyone. If you want to come, come’.”

But a group of white students, clearly unhappy with the integrated precedent set last year, decided they simply could not bear it and struck out on their own.

“They didn’t vote on anything,” said McCrary. “They said, ‘this is what we’re going to do’.”

Some white students plan to go to both proms.

“I had some white friends who were not going to the other [inclusive] prom,” said Erin Posey. “I wanted to have time with everybody. I’ll have a lot of [black] friends there too. A lot more of the seniors are going to be at the mixed one.”

Segregated proms are not unheard of in the South, where apartheid-style segregation was legal less than 50 years ago. In 1954 the US Supreme Court ruled that the provision of “separate but equal” facilities was unconstitutional. While the law changed overnight, the power structure that enforced segregation and the mindset that policed it have been more stubborn. The state of Georgia is set to vote on its third flag in two years, following a bitter row over the desire of many whites to see a return of the Confederate symbol — the mark of the slave-owning south. The integration of state schools prompted many white parents to take their children out of the state sector and educate them privately in what are commonly known as “seg academies.”

Many southern state schools, like Taylor County High, which have a large intake of both black and white students, nonetheless maintain segregated practices.

Bob Jones University in South Carolina, which President George Bush visited during his election campaign, only lifted its ban on interracial dating in 2000. As recently as two years ago, the high school in ColdWater, Mississippi, held separate votes for its black and white homecoming queens. Just a few years ago, Hernando High School in Mississippi had everything in racial duplicate — from a black and a white principal to black and white yearbooks.

Taylor County High still has a black and a white junior class president. But last year the students decided to break the mould.

“Everybody finally decided to grow up,” said McCrary.

Amber Williams, a white fellow-student, agreed. “We go to school together; we should do our prom together,” she said. She received anonymous phone threats but the party went ahead. Since the county has only one public elementary school and one middle school, many of the students who had been friends since kindergarten could finally finish school together.

“I would have liked to see it together this year,” said Gerard Latimore, the black junior class president. “It just didn’t happen.”

His mother, Glenda, said news of the segregated prom reflected the underlying racism in the area rather than any overt hostility. The white people she encounters, she says, are “nice and friendly” but they have a problem with proms.

“It seems like it’s something secret,” she said. “The white people are afraid to speak up against the separation.”

Source: Guardian (UK)

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Carrboro residents defy PATRIOT Act
Residents of Carrboro, NC have pressured the City Council to pass a “Bill of Rights Defense Resolution.” The measure requires federal investigators who visit the town of 17,000 to report to City Hall and state their business. It also directs local police to stand in the way of any unreasonable searches or seizures. Local residents are worried the federal government has become too intrusive and that federal agents could sweep into town and violate their constitutional right to privacy.

“The PATRIOT Act passed overwhelmingly in the hysteria following the Sept. 11 tragedy,” said Mark Dorison, a local nightclub manager. “I don’t think the American public has had a chance to digest the sweeping ramifications.”

Dozens of cities around the country have passed similar resolutions. Efforts to pass similar measures are under way in more than 60 other places. Largely symbolic, many of the resolutions provide some legal justification for local authorities to resist cooperating in the federal “war on terrorism” when they deem civil liberties and constitutional rights are being compromised.

At issue is an element of the president’s homeland security program — the USA PATRIOT Act. The rules give the FBI and CIA more authority to wiretap and monitor residents. They can also force librarians and county clerks to turn over public records, and jail them if they tell anyone. The people of Carrboro say they realize their resolution, their police chief, and their mayor will end up in court, and they’re ready for the fight. (ABC News)

SOA protesters report to federal prison
On Apr. 29, 12 human rights activists reported to federal prisons across the country for sentences resulting from civil disobedience last November to protest the School of the Americas (renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) in Columbus, GA. They were among 86 convicted of trespass earlier this year. Sentences range from 12 months probation to six months in federal prison.

The defendants include nine Catholic nuns, a priest, a reverend, seven veterans, union organizers, professors, and students. During the November vigil where 10,000 gathered to call for the closure of the SOA/WHINSEC and to expose a double standard in the “war on terrorism,” the defendants peacefully crossed onto Ft. Benning, site of the school.

The SOA/WHINSEC is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers. Its graduates are consistently involved in human rights violations and political coups. In 1996, the Pentagon was forced to release manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion, and execution. (SOA Watch)

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